Franchise Fantasy Draft and Trade Tips Topic

Hello all, it's moochieh, the creator of last year's fantasy draft and trade FAQ. I was working on this year's guide but Poilbrun beat my to the punch and published his already so I am making this topic to share some things that will really help you with your franchise. Even if you don't do a fantasy draft, the trading tips can really come in handy when trying to land a stud player in a trade. So here we go...

-Think about you ideal team before you even get to the draft. Which pick would give you the players that you want? Which players do you want to target in the draft and which can you get from trading after? Who can you draft that has good trading value? These are all good questions to ask yourself before you even start drafting.

-Something important to keep in mind is that when a player is traded, his signing bonus completely goes away to 0k. This means it will be a lot cheaper to trade for a guy with a big salary than it is to draft him. Peyton Manning has the biggest contract in the game with a cap hit somewhere around 15 million. If you trade for him, his cap hit will lower significantly because the other team would pay his signing bonus for you. This can come in handy when dealing with rookie salaries. I traded for Vernon Gholston when his salary hit was over 7 million. He became a 3.5 million player after I got him.

-This is perhaps the most important point that no one knows about!!! Using the edit player option in the player management menu is very important to getting the best team. In general, I do not pick a DE, DT, G, or C until I absolutely have to or I feel it is a great value. Instead, I target Tackles, MLBs, and OLBs more. Feel free to play around with this and post your findings, but normally a T increases about 3 points when moved to G, more if you pick specific players. For instance, Jake Long is an 85 overall LT. He follows this pattern and becomes a 91 G and a 88 C.T-->G-->C0-->6-->3A guy like Ryan Diem or Kareem McKenzie is...0-->3-->0so they gain 3 overall by moving to guard and stay the same at center.

Now here is the good part. Over 25 DEs leave the draft board before Kamerion Wimbley and Terrell Suggs... not one of them is better. Both of these guys (and many others) become 99 overalls when switched to DE and even DT. Remember when I mentioned trading Spikes ar ROLB? Try switching him to RE or LE first and see what happens. He becomes a 98 overall straight from the FA pool! Look for guys with good Power Moves, Finesse Moves, and Block Shedding to make this transition. Bertrand Berry for example becomes a 97, Vernon Gholston a 94, and many others are 99s like Ray Lewis and Bart Scott. MLBs are generally better at the OLB spot by 3 overall, and DEs increase when moved to DT as well.

I can see this is getting kind of long so I request that no one posts until I finish my 3rd post. Feel free to add other things after that like your teams so that someone can rate it and I'll post my current team, which should be noted that I used the roster update that came out at release because that is what Poilbrun used.

-Always sign free agents before the season starts to a one year deal with NO SIGNING BONUS so that you can trade them. This avoids cap penalties that you can get when trading them (although I haven't seen any team get penalties, the signing bonuses seem to just disappear). Pretty much every free agent is valuable to trade because you can package even the weaker ones together for draft picks.

-Always max out what you can receive. If you offer a deal and it is accepted, don't go through with it until you check if you can add extra draft picks on to the end.

-1st round draft picks range from C+ value to B+, 2nd round from D+ to C+, 3rd round from F to D+ depending on how good the team is. I made my franchise with the 49ers so my first rounder had the best value of B+. A team like the Pats will have a C+ 1st rounder.

-When trying to trade for draft picks the trading block can really come in handy. It will give you the best possible picks you can get for your picks. For example, put a 3rd, 6th, and 7th round pick in and ask for a 1st rounder and it will tell you quickly that no team will want to do that. Play around with the offer until you get something you like (2nd, 5th, 7th for a C+ 1st rounder).

-In order to get the most out of your trade, manually search for teams that are very weak in a position, or use the trading block to look for the highest possible pick that you can get for a combination of players. For example, you sign ROLB Takeo Spikes and try to trade him. Look for teams that have no one at ROLB after the draft because they might have drafted 3 or 4 LOLB and are very weak on the other side. These teams will give you much more value for a player than a team that already has a good ROLB.

-After completing all of these trades, you will notice that your team's morale will be very low. A fix for this is to go into the edit player menu and switch their position momentarily, switch it back to normal and hit "keep changes but do not save." That player's morale should be back to the starting point.

I gotta go for a while now, please keep this bumped and add anything you would like to it. I can check the topic over my phone so I can still add things to it if it is a simple answer to a question. Enjoy...----Mooch-Ray Rice- Pick #55 Baltimore Ravens